WATCH - Safety Dance! Men At Work Coming to the Twin Cities!

posted by Lee Valsvik -

Men Without Hats earned their place on this summer's Retro Futura Tour (State Theater Mpls. August 17!) thanks to the '80s classic "Safety Dance."

Founding member Ivan Doroschuk talks about the video that introduced the Canadian synth-rockers to Americans.

Ivan Doroschuk of Men Without Hats on the "Safety Dance" video.

"I was studying film and communication at McGill University at Montreal at the time. The idea was kind of a Pied Piper thing that we were trying to do. And Tim Pope, the director, who was based in England, and myself -- it was pre-Internet days, so we actually sent letters to each other where we thought the scenario should be and it turned out we both had the same idea. Our letters crossed the Atlantic the same time, and we ended up getting along really famously because of that."

Ivan Doroschuk of Men Without Hats credits MTV with the success of "Safety Dance."

"Yeah, it was a new format and it was just a lot of exposure. It was really, MTV is really, they're one of the things that put us on the map. The video has become an iconic video now, and it's largely due to them. They were just playing it a lot and it really helped for our recognition in the States and all over the world."